Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero

by David Maraniss

  The main effect Clemente had on his audience was to increase the talk about his prowess at the end of a long career played in the relative obscurity of Pittsburgh. Had he spent his baseball days in New York, Boston, Chicago, or Los Angeles, he would have been a national icon already, a living legend, and now was his chance to make up for lost time. When a visiting writer asked a Pittsburgh man in the press box whether Clemente had ever run and thrown and hit like this before, the simple response was, yes, every day. But the out-of-town sportswriters had not seen him play every day, until now. “He wants to be appreciated,” wrote Steve Jacobson of Newsday. “That’s why he plays the game so hard, making his old, spraddle-legged mad dash on the bases, burning in his throws from right field, and generally behaving as if his reputation were on the line every day.” The way Clemente was going, wrote Bob Maisel of the Sun, he could extend his World Series hitting streak until he was a hundred. “Put it altogether and you have about as good a player as there is in the game. He has a license to hurt you.” Jim Murray praised Clemente after doing his version of Carl Sandburg on Pittsburgh: “This is where they poured the steel that forged the cannon, that laid the track. Toughtown, U.S.A. America’s glare in the sky. One million guys in bowling shirts with Tick Tock Lounge stenciled on the back. A town that needed a shave twice a day. Hard coal and molten iron. The sinew of America. It was all power, and guys who dunked doughnuts in hot coffee, and worked the mills till the sweat ran black across their backs and down their eyes . . . But the greatest player this town will ever see came not out of the crucibles or the mine shafts or the ore boats, but out of the canebrakes of the Caribbean.” It was common for the World Series to produce an unlikely hero while the big names flopped, Murray added. “It’s nice to see a great player living up to his greatness. It’s about time 60 million people got in on a legend and not just Toughtown, U.S.A. It’s nice to see a great artist giving people goose pimples instead of just goose eggs.”

  • • •

  There were two outstanding right fielders in the 1971 series, and by the time the teams returned to Baltimore for Game 6 the contest in some ways had become a test of wills between Roberto Clemente and Frank Robinson, on and off the field. Since the first practice in Baltimore before Game 1, Clemente had complained about Memorial Stadium, saying the outfield was the worst in the major leagues, full of holes and ditches that made it hard to charge the ball, and with lights positioned so that it was hard to see the ball in the air. The reporters dutifully reported the criticisms to Robinson, who said he appreciated Clemente and did not want to start a feud, and then in essence started one by adding: “Why, until the middle of last year Roberto played in a coal hole himself [Forbes Field]. Sure, there are shadows in our park. He’s supposed to be a great outfielder, though. He should adjust. If he has any trouble . . . just tell him to watch me in the outfield and stand where I stand.”

  Robinson, a year younger than Clemente, had come up with the Reds in 1956, a year after Clemente began with the Pirates, and for the next ten seasons their careers had run along parallel tracks as two of the finest five-tool right fielders the game had ever seen. But both played in the shadows of Mays and Mantle, and in those early years, before F Robby was traded to Baltimore in 1966, they had to compete not only with each other but with Henry Aaron just to land a starting berth on the National League All-Star team. Robinson lacked Clemente’s flair, but always got the job done, and burned with the same aggressive fire. Each had matured into the undisputed leader of his team, the player their teammates relied on physically and emotionally. They both had surprisingly soft, second-tenor voices, yet spoke with confidence and authority. Their leadership skills were readily apparent, and had been tested during the winter league in Puerto Rico the previous winter, when Robinson managed the Santurce Cangrejeros, Clemente’s original team, and Clemente managed the San Juan Senadores. The major league establishment was not yet considering the possibility of a black Latin manager, but the idea of a black American manager was now within the realm of discussion, and the man most often talked about was Frank Robinson. During the series, in fact, Robinson had made news one day by saying that he had changed his mind and thought now that he didn’t want to “go through the strain, the agonies, the frustrations of managing” in the big leagues. “Managing is out for me—period!” he announced. (Never say period: Four years later, Robinson became the first black manager in the majors, taking over the Cleveland Indians, and a full three decades after that he would still be receiving notice as the skilled manager of the over-achieving Washington Nationals.)

  In their Game 6 showcase, Clemente could not have performed better, yet Robinson did what he had to do. While the Pirates brought out Bob Moose, their sixth starter in six games, Baltimore’s rotation came around again to Jim Palmer, who went nine strong innings, leaving with the score tied 2–2 as it entered extra innings. Clemente opened the game with a booming first-inning triple. Bust him inside, the Orioles had finally decided, after failing utterly with their low-and-away theory, so Palmer came in and Roberto pulled the ball down the left-field line for three bases, but he was stranded at third when Willie Stargell struck out. In the third inning, he strode to the plate for the second time. “And now here comes Bobby Clemente,” announced Bob Prince on the radio. “If there’s ever been a vendetta, this might be it. Pitch to him from Palmer . . . And there’s a ball hit very deep to right field. And going back for it is Frank Robinson. He’s at the wall. He can’t get it. It’s gone for a home run. Bobby Clemente continues to totally annihilate Baltimore pitching.”

  That gave the Pirates a 2–0 lead. Moose pitched well, shutting out the Orioles for five innings, but left in the sixth, grousing about the balls and strikes calls of home plate umpire John Kibler. He had the support of his manager, Murtaugh, who was “getting really pissed about the umpiring behind the plate,” according to Tony Bartirome, who was sitting next to him in the dugout. It was actually a strike call that hurt Moose most, ironically. Baltimore’s Don Buford, trying to coax a walk, threw his bat away and started trotting to first base after a three-and-one pitch, but Kibler called it a strike, so Buford returned to the plate and promptly hit the next pitch far over Clemente’s head in right for a home run, starting the O’s comeback. In the top of the ninth, with Belanger on first, Buford doubled to right—but Clemente was out there, and a perfect throw kept Belanger from scoring.

  To relieve Palmer in the tenth, Baltimore turned to two of its twenty-game winners, Dobson and McNally. Dobson gave up a single to Dave Cash, who stole second, placing the lead run in scoring position. In most situations such a steal would be beneficial, but here it had the same boomerang effect as the strike call on Buford in the sixth. With first base open and two out, the Orioles intentionally walked the hitter they least wanted to face—Clemente. Weaver brought in McNally to pitch to Stargell, who also walked, but Al Oliver flied out to end the inning. Frank Robinson was first up for the Orioles in the bottom of the tenth. He had gone hitless in four at-bats, but now drew a walk, then raced to third on a single by Rettenmund, and was ninety feet from home when Brooks Robinson lofted a soft fly ball to center field.

  The ball was so shallow that Brooks Robinson felt disappointed as he ran to first, thinking his teammate might not be able to tag up and score. If the ball had been hit to Clemente in right, there would have been no debate: stay put. But Billy Hunter, the third base coach, figured this might be their only shot. In center field now was Vic Davalillo, who had entered the game as a pinch hitter in the ninth. They could challenge his arm, even though he had almost nailed the runner at third on Rettenmund’s single. Frank Robinson had barely avoided Richie Hebner’s tag with a daring headfirst slide. Now Hunter turned to him and said, “You’re going!” Robinson had already decided that he was going in any case. Davalillo, from the corner of his eye, saw the runner tag as he made the catch. He decided it was too far to reach the plate on a fly, so he fired a one-hopper toward the plate. Hunter, following the throw from ne
ar the third base box, thought F Robby was dead at home if the ball took a true bounce to Sanguillen, the catcher. Sanguillen, his attention divided between the ball and the shadow of the runner barreling toward him, also thought he had time to make the play. But the ball hit the grass in front of the plate and took a high, slow bounce, forcing Sanguillen to jump up and then lean back to try to make the tag. F Robby, churning down the line with his spindly thirty-six-year-old legs, slid in safely—game over. The series was now tied three games apiece.

  In the visitors’ locker room before the start of Game 7 on Sunday, October 17, Clemente moved from one teammate to the next, reassuring them. “Don’t worry,” he said, again and again. “We are gonna win this game. No problem.”

  Two of his best friends on the team, Pagán and Hernández, who would comprise the left side of the infield, felt lucky just to be there. Pagán, knowing that he would start at third against the left-handed Cuellar, was so anxious at the hotel before the game that he decided to take an early cab instead of waiting for the team bus. Hernández came with him. As the taxi hurtled north and then east from downtown to Memorial Stadium, a little too fast for Pagán’s comfort, a Volkswagen bug ran a stop sign, forcing the cabbie to swerve and slam on the breaks, spinning the vehicle in three full circles before it came to a stop. So close—and yet as it turned out the carnival-like taxi ride might have been just the shakeup José Antonio Pagán and Jacinto Zubeta Hernández needed to excel in the most important game of their lives.

  The capacity crowd of 47,291 started a clamor before the opening pitch and maintained a steady roar throughout. It was Cuellar and Blass again, and both pitchers were in command. Cuellar retired the first eleven Pirates in order until Clemente, neck rotating, made his regal stroll to the plate with two outs in the fourth inning. This was a grudge match, Clemente v. Cuellar. Over the winter in Puerto Rico, Clemente had managed Cuellar on the Senadores, and it had not gone well. Cuellar thought Clemente was unreasonably demanding, and said so. The rub of their relationship was only aggravated by that dinky little play in Game 3, when Clemente discombobulated the pitcher with his mad dash to first base. Now the Orioles were still following their revised game plan to pitch Clemente inside. When Cuellar came in, Clemente turned on the ball and pulled it 390 feet over the leftfield wall, putting the Pirates ahead, 1–0. With the crack of the bat, something like an electric jolt zapped through the Pittsburgh dugout. Clemente had said all along that he would win this thing. Murtaugh looked around and realized that the home run had “set off a chain reaction” among his players. Now they believed him.

  Cuellar, unruffled this time, remained virtually unhittable, setting down ten of the next eleven batters until Stargell singled in the eighth. Up came Pagán, Clemente’s Puerto Rican pal, the thirteen-year veteran who had recovered from a broken arm in August to share time at third with Hebner. Murtaugh flashed the hit-and-run sign to Oceak, who relayed it to Pagán. Stargell, taking off with the release of the pitch, was around second when Pagán’s liner fell beyond Rettenmund’s reach in deep left center, and came all the way home when the outfielder had trouble getting the ball out of his glove. The score was 2–0 Pirates going into the bottom of the eighth.

  Blass was even more effective than Cuellar, working with an urgency that Jim Murray said made it look like “he was pitching out of a swarm of bees.” Weaver had tried to distract him in the first inning, coming out of the dugout to complain that Blass was not touching the rubber on his delivery. Weaver was right, Blass would later confess. He had fallen into the habit of slipping his right foot off the rubber before releasing the ball, and for the rest of the game had to keep reminding himself not to do it. But Blass was in his own world again, at once a bundle of nerves and utterly unstoppable, shutting out the Orioles through the first seven innings. “I could hardly stand still,” he said later. “I kept coming back to the clubhouse between innings and I must have opened seven Cokes, but I didn’t drink any.” In the bottom of the eighth, catcher Elrod Hendricks got a leadoff single, and Belanger followed with a soft single to center. Cuellar, up third, hit a bouncer back to the mound, and Blass, ignoring Sanguillen’s shouts to go for the force at third, took the sure out at first instead. Runners on second and third, one out. Buford bounced to Robertson at first, who stepped on the bag for the second out, allowing Hendricks to score.

  Blass now led 2–1, a runner on third, two outs. He was so nervous he could barely stand still, and paced a full 360 around the mound before approaching the rubber to face Davey Johnson. Jackie Hernández, at short, remembered from Howie Haak’s scouting reports that Johnson pulled the ball, so he moved a few feet toward third. Earlier in the year, after making a game-losing error, Hernández had been inconsolable in the locker room. “I’m nothing!” he had said, head bowed. It was Clemente who sought him out and reassured him that he was an important member of the team and that everyone makes mistakes. All anyone could ask was that he give it everything he could. When Earl Weaver questioned how the Pirates could win with Hernández at short, Clemente stood up for him again. Now, with a runner on third and the series in the balance, Hernández was so confident that he wanted the ball hit to him. And it was—Johnson slashed one deep into the hole, and Hernández moved expertly to his right to field the ball and make the long throw for the third out. One inning to go.

  In the top of the ninth, Blass was so nervous he couldn’t watch his team bat. He came into the clubhouse and threw up and was so psyched he couldn’t stand still. When the Pirates were retired, he was “scared to death.” He had to force himself up the steps and out of the dugout to the mound. O’s fans were roaring. They had Boog Powell, Frank Robinson, and Rettenmund coming up, with Brooks Robinson waiting if anyone got on base. It had been cloudy all afternoon, but suddenly the sun came out. Blass figured he would throw strikes and hope for the best. They couldn’t all hit home runs off him, he joked to himself, because after the first homer Murtaugh would yank him. There were no homers, no hits, just Blass, one last time, setting down the heart of the order, and with the final out he jumped and bounded and leaped until he landed in the arms of Manny Sanguillen. Clemente sprinted in from right field and bounced down the steps and into the delirious locker room, where Bob Prince, the Gunner, was rounding up interviews.

  “I can’t believe it. I don’t know what to say,” Blass told Prince. “The biggest thrill that could ever happen. A skinny kid from Connecticut . . .”

  “Any moments when you were really worried?” Prince asked.

  “There were several. One was a hanging slider to Davey Johnson, but he missed the pitch. I can’t believe it! How many people have this kind of opportunity.”

  Blass, drenched in champagne, headed off to hold court with the rest of the press horde. At one point he picked up the ringing telephone and answered, “Wally’s Delicatessen,” then, going into a Bob Newhart–style routine, he continued . . . “What? You want to talk to Clemente? Spell that please. Clemente who?”

  Willie Stargell came in arm-in-arm with Jackie Hernández. Clemente stood nearby. He had just been named the outstanding player in the series, finishing with a .414 average, hits in every game, extending his World Series streak to fourteen, two doubles, a triple, and two home runs, along with his stellar base running, fielding, and throwing. Roger Angell, the pitch-perfect baseball writer for the New Yorker, described Clemente’s performance over the seven games as “something close to the level of absolute perfection”—and no one disagreed. Prince turned to Clemente in the locker room. “And here with me now, the greatest right fielder in the game of baseball. Bobby, congratulations on a great World Series . . .”

  “Thank you, Bob,” Clemente said to Prince. “And before I say anything in English, I’d like to say something in Spanish to my mother and father in Puerto Rico . . .”

  An ebullient Blass stepped in and blurted out, “Mr. and Mrs. Clemente, we love him, too!” It was spontaneous and joyful, but Blass would later wince whenever he thought about his interru
ption.

  After seventeen seasons in the major leagues, this was Clemente’s time, with the world listening and watching at last, having seen him perform at his best, carrying his team for seven games—and he made a conscious decision to speak first in Spanish. It was one of the most memorable acts of his life, a simple moment that touched the souls of millions of people in the Spanish-speaking world. “En el día más grande de mi vida, para los nenes la bendición mia y que mis padres me echen la bendición. [In the most important day of my life, I give blessings to my boys and ask that my parents give their blessing] . . .”

  Later, when the television cameras were off, Clemente stood on a bench in the dressing room, surrounded by reporters, and let it out one more time, a stream-of-consciousness monologue that fluctuated between pride and fury and grace. “Now people in the whole world know the way I play,” he began. “Mentally, for me, I will be a completely different person. For the first time, I have no regrets.” Completely different? The words were the same, still evoking his underappreciated past, but there was a barely repressed smile as he continued. He wanted people to know, again, that he played this way all the time, all season, every season. And that he wasn’t a hypochondriac. And that he could pull the ball when he wanted to. And that he was tired of writers adding some qualifying “but” to their comments about him. He didn’t play for himself, he said. He was happy the Pirates won because it was a team effort all year and it was great for the Pittsburgh fans. This win was more satisfying than 1960. George Hanson of the Montreal Star was on the edge of the crowd, not far from Manny Sanguillen.